It has become commonplace for persons to carry various electronic devices with them, and it is becoming commonplace for those electronic devices to be networked in what is commonly referred to as a personal area network (PAN) to exchange information. Such devices include wristwatches, smart phones, smart watches, smart glasses, activity monitoring devices such as pedometers, health monitoring devices such as pulse monitors, wireless earsets for audio communications, pacemakers, etc. Many PANs employ wireless radio frequency (RF) communications, and like other forms of wireless networks, have proven susceptible to security breaches in which another person uses another electronic device to wirelessly gain access to a PAN for such purposes as stealing information from one or more of the electronic devices of that PAN.
An approach to countering such security breaches has been to replace wireless RF signaling as a communications medium with the human body, forming a body area network or BAN. More precisely, the skin and/or other tissues of the body are employed as a conductive medium to convey signals between electronic devices disposed in close proximity to the body. However, BANs have also proven susceptible to security breaches arising from another person coming into skin-to-skin contact, or at least coming into close enough physical proximity as to enable another electronic on their body to be momentarily added to a BAN. Such security breaches have been known to occur in situations in which numerous persons are momentarily compelled to be in close proximity to each other, such as while riding in subways or elevators, or while waiting in a line.